Disney Being Sued by Stan Lee Media

Recently, Stan Lee Media has filed a suit against the Walt Disney Co. seeking "billions of dollars of profit" while claiming they own the rights to Marvel characters such as Iron Man and Spider Man.

Stan Lee, creator of many of the popular Marvel characters, no longer is associated with Stan Lee Media. That company says Lee gave it the rights to the characters back in 1998, but then assigned the same rights to Marvel about a month later.

In this latest suit, Stan Lee Media states:

The Walt Disney Company has represented to the public that it, in fact, owns the copyright to these characters as well as hundreds of other characters created by Stan Lee. Those representations made to the public by the Walt Disney Company are false.

The suit from Stan Lee Media claims it's owed some $3.5 billion from movies based on Marvel characters as well as $2 billion "from other media."

And in response, Walt Disney Co. has said via a statement:

This lawsuit is without merit. It arises out of the same core facts and legal claims that have been rejected by three federal district court judges.

Disney acquired Marvel Enterprises, which had been renamed Marvel Entertainment, for $4.3 billion in 2009.

Whoa, how is this company is still around?! They stopped doing actual production work more than 10 years ago and have just been suing other more successful companies ever since Stan Lee left them to create POW.